This month's cover photo shows nine-year-old Yeslin and other immigrants held at the Berks County Family Residential Center in Leesport, PA. Established in 2001, it's one of three family detention centers in the United States-facilities where asylum seekers are kept in custody while their cases are processed.
Just before this photo was taken, Yeslin had told a crowd of protesters gathered outside the facility how she felt about being incarcerated. Immigrant advocates argue that prolonged detention, even when families are kept together, is inhumane and particularly harmful to children. According to a 2016 report by Human Rights First, "Most families at Berks have been there for upwards of six months. This prolonged detention has had serious negative consequences for children, including suicidal gestures and ideation, anxiety, sleeplessness, behavioral regressions, and lack of appetite." That same year, 22 mothers detained at the facility went on a hunger strike to protest their long-term incarceration and call attention to its effects on their children.
Prolonged activation of the stress response in children, known as "toxic stress," can lead to permanent changes in the developing brain that cause chronic physical and mental illnesses. To learn more about toxic stress-and how health care professionals can help children who may be affected-read this month's AJN Reports, "The Lifelong Reverberations of Toxic Stress."-Diane Szulecki, editor